The Glentauchers 17 Year Old

In 1897, Glentauchers Distillery Co. was founded as a joint venture between two established names in the blended whisky world: James Buchanan and W.P. Lowrie. The pair were already successful in their venture of a blended whisky known as ‘The Buchanan Blend’ (later renamed to ‘Black & White’) created primarily for the London market – Buchanan was a whisky merchant based in London and Lowrie, a stockholder from Glasgow, supplied him with the goods. The Buchanan Blend was launched in 1884, and in perfect timing too, as the total production of Scotch whisky during the next decade almost doubled. So successful, in fact, that James Buchanan & Co. became one of the ‘Big Three’ whisky houses, alongside Dewar’s and Walker’s, who promoted the idea that Scotch was a respectable and desirable alcoholic drink amongst British elites.

From the get-go of establishing Glentauchers, Buchanan and Lowrie meant business – designed by local architect John Alcock, the distillery buildings were reported as being “substantial and commodious” by local newspaper Banffshire Herald and a siding was brought into the site from the nearby railway between Aberdeen and Inverness for ease of transporting whisky out of the distillery for its use in Buchanan blends. Located just three miles from Keith, Glentauchers was built in one of the fields of a family farm called Taucher, from whence it derived its name, and began whisky production in 1898, with malting beginning in May and brewing in June of that year.

This also happened to be the very same year of the Pattison crash, which occurred in December and had such a calamitous effect on the Scotch whisky industry that no other distilleries were built in Scotland within the following fifty years. Lowrie, who had dealings tied up with the bankrupted Pattison Ltd, was caught up in the impending industry relapse and less than a decade later Glentauchers was 100% owned by just Buchanan.

Miraculously, Glentauchers’ was otherwise unaffected in its production by this great industry meltdown, and Buchanan was given the Royal Warrant to supply the Royal Household with Buchanan's whisky to Queen Victoria and the Prince of Wales. During this time, Glentauchers began experimenting with new distillation processes, including ‘continuous pot distilling’ which involved running 100% malted barley through a pot still that had been adapted for such purposes. Buchanan thought this would be the future of Scottish distillation. He was wrong.

Soon again changes in Glentauchers’ ownership were afoot, with Buchanan merging with John Dewar in 1915, and then once more with Distiller's Company Ltd in 1925 (who at that point had also gained ownership of Johnnie Walker). Following the second merger, extensive renovations on Glentauchers were completed, including alterations on the makings and the mash house, as well as a new spirit store large enough to house the distillery’s growing volume of production.

From 1939 however, due to the wartime restrictions on barley supplies, Glentauchers was forced to close. They didn’t reopen until 1946 following the end of World War II. Finally in 1966, production was majorly upped with the installation of four new pot stills (previously only two). During this time the still house, mash house and tun room were also all completely rebuilt. Then in 1985, following almost two decades of uneventful whisky-making, Glentauchers came under the control of United Distillers and was consequently mothballed – one of the many distilleries to be affected by the 1980’s slump in demand. For three years the distillery remained dormant until 1989 when it was sold to Allied Distillers, a decision which came quite unexpectedly at the time. They finally resumed distilling the following year, becoming a key component in Ballantine’s from 1992. Following Allied’s joint takeover in 2005, Glentauchers came under its current ownership of Pernod Ricard.

Even now Glentauchers consist of six pot stills, with three wash stills at 17,875 litres capacity each and three spirit stills at 14,693 litres each. Water is dam-fed from the nearby Burn of Rosarie, and distillery production capacity today is at 4.1 million litres.

With such a long and rich history in the Scotch blended whisky world, Glentauchers’ remains all but unheard of, with almost every drop it makes used in Ballantine's and Teachers' blends. Less than 1% of the distillery’s whole output sees the light of day as a single malt, and those who dabble in hidden gem distilleries may know that there's only been a handful of chances for lucky whisky lovers to pick up an official Glentauchers Single Malt. And even less chance of getting a glimpse inside the distillery's walls, it doesn't even have a Visitors' Centre.